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Sword of the Stars Goes Golden

Jason

chasing a bee
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baby arm fantasy island
<strong>[ Update ]</strong>

<p>According to Lighthouse Interactive, <a href="http://www.swordofthestars.com/" title="SotS">Sword of the Stars</a> has gone gold and is due out in North America in 3 weeks.</p><blockquote><p> Haarlem, The Netherlands, August 1, 2006 &ndash; Leading entertainment software publisher Lighthouse Interactive and developer Kerberos Productions today announced that their highly anticipated 4X strategy game, &ldquo;Sword of the Stars&rdquo; has Gone Gold. Lighthouse is happy to inform the many SOTS fans and gaming fans in general, that the game will be available in North American retail stores on August 22nd and will begin shipping into various retail stores throughout Europe commencing September 1st.

Lighthouse CEO Erik Schreuder said: "We are extremely proud to announce that Sword of the Stars has gone gold and will be available in the next few weeks. Working on the game alongside Kerberos has been a great experience and we are overjoyed with the results.&rdquo; Schreuder went on to say &ldquo;Sword of the Stars has exceeded all of our expectations in reviving the genre. This is a great title and we are sure gamers around the globe will agree with us.&rdquo;

Martin Cirulis CEO of Kerberos added: &ldquo;We here at Kerberos are pleased and excited to see our flagship title, Sword of the Stars, on its way to shelves. Working with Lighthouse has been a real treat for a bunch of industry vets like ourselves and we are proud to go into stores under the Lighthouse banner. We are looking forward to bringing gamers a new and evolutionary franchise to the realm of 4X." </p></blockquote><p>Read: <a href="http://www.lighthouse-interactive.com/index.php?nid=125&main=archive&type=" title="Gold">SotS Gold Announcement</a></p><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p><a href="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/gallery.php?dir=Sword%20of%20the%20Stars&file=screen0002a.jpg"><img src="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/screenshots/Sword%20of%20the%20Stars/thumbs/screen0002a_thumb.jpg" alt=" " width="200" height="150" /></a>
</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.strategycore.co.uk/">StrategyCore</a></p>
 

Ivy Mike

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I've been playing the demo the last few days. I wasn't too impresed first, but the game is slowly growing on me. All in all the game feels very thought through. There's no micro managing of planets á la GalCiv 2 (and the Space Empires series I believe). At first I though it was a kind of akward decision for a 4X game, but the gameplay actually benefits from it. Tactical battles are fun and the different researchable technologies have an actuall impact on what tactics you choose. And although the demo only lets you choos between humans and tarkas, there is enough difference between the two so that you have to consider your overall strategy carefully.
 

Greatatlantic

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Feb 21, 2005
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baby arm said:
So did anyone else enjoy the demo, or does everyone other than Ivy Mike hate it?

I didn't realize there was a demo till I read this news post. Commencing download, though I doubt I'll have any impressions up until tomorrow or later.
 

kingcomrade

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I just tried it out. It's pretty crappy. The battles are unresponsive, slow, and most of the time I'm not sure what my ships are even attempting to do. The management UI isn't very steamlined at all, and just moving the camera around is a pain. Wasn't much fun.
 

suleo

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Mar 22, 2006
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I tried the demo. Started the tutorial mission, went through the crap, heard some fairly annoying voice acting. Then, based on the tutorial text I pressed "end turn". To my surprise, I was informed that I had WON THE GAME. On turn 2. I tried the tutorial 2 more times; same thing.

In other words, the tutorial in the demo is broken, at least for me.

Oh and the 3d research tree is indeed the most HORRIBLE IDEA EVAR!!11
 

Jason

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All the non-human voices are less annoying than the humans. I like the Liir (the space dolphins). They sound all squishy.
 

Ivy Mike

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kingcomrade said:
I just tried it out. It's pretty crappy. The battles are unresponsive, slow, and most of the time I'm not sure what my ships are even attempting to do. The management UI isn't very steamlined at all, and just moving the camera around is a pain. Wasn't much fun.

The battles seem unresponsive because of a) the use of newtonian pyshics (inertia for example) and b) the current limited tech level. This is not an RTS, each battle has to be planned and the ships tactically places and moved in accorandce with your tactic. When defending a planet, for example, I usally place two minelayers on the flanks of my defence force and keep my other ships in some formation. While my opponent either a) blasts full force for my Command and Controll ship or b) try to punch through directly to my planet, I send the minelayers to deploy a wall of mines that my opponent has to head through. My other ships are then in a better position to finish of the enemies that get through.

I agree that controlling your ships while in tacticale mode is akward at first. My main gripe is that it's almost too hard to actually see both your own and you opponent's ships. This does however seem like a concious design decision. When switching to sensors (SPACEBAR) you can see all ships within your sensor range, but you cannot issue orders - when in visual mode you might have a harder time seeing all the ships but can issue orders. Higher tech (not in the demo) will let you issue orders from the sensor mode. There might also be improved visuall feedback with higher tech.

Moving the camera around is as simple as holding down the middle (?) mouse button and moving your mouse. The same as many, many other 3D RTS/tactical games.

suleo said:
I tried the demo. Started the tutorial mission, went through the crap, heard some fairly annoying voice acting. Then, based on the tutorial text I pressed "end turn". To my surprise, I was informed that I had WON THE GAME. On turn 2. I tried the tutorial 2 more times; same thing.

In other words, the tutorial in the demo is broken, at least for me.

That's because you didn't choose any opponents. You have to manually activate the AI opponent right after the first menu when starting a new game. Granted, the tutorial doesn't tell you this.

suleo said:
Oh and the 3d research tree is indeed the most HORRIBLE IDEA EVAR!!11

Agreed. A 3D tech-tree annoyign at best and frustrating at worst.
 

YourConscience

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In your head, obviously
I happened to enjoy the demo a lot longer than many other full games. At first I was put off of the sluggishness and unresponsiveness in the tacbattles. But later it grew on me and I began to see the well though-out game mechanics.

However, I am still undecided about whether the 3D starmap was all that good of an idea. The 3D techtree is pretty good, actually. But I see that I am pretty much alone with this. :)
 

suleo

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Mar 22, 2006
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Ivy Mike said:
That's because you didn't choose any opponents. You have to manually activate the AI opponent right after the first menu when starting a new game. Granted, the tutorial doesn't tell you this.


Hmm I do remember playing with the AI opponent options, selecting all of them for one run and deselecting all of them for another. Perhaps I'll give it another shot after I am done with my replay of TOEE.
 

Kraken

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Jul 6, 2005
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Sorry for reviving an old post, but SOTS has been patched a few times. Has anyone played the game with the latest patch? If so, is the game worth buying now?
 

Jason

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That's a good question. I haven't tried it since it was released, and that $20 price tag tempts every time I see it on the shelves. Hopefully one of the few people around here that bought it will chime in.
 

YourConscience

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Yes it's worth it. Replayability-wise it offers you really a lot of room to try (and fail, hehe) many really different strategies and the AI is certainly up to the task. For $20 it's a really good deal!
 

suleo

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Mar 22, 2006
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OMG NECRO!!! (well not so much).

I just wanted to add that I caved in and finally bought SOTS & the expansion. It's a MUCH better game than I remember from the demo. I am having a blast; it definitely has the "one more turn" feel to it. Also I got used to the tech tree now and tech in the game is quite nice since some of it is random, so you can't depend on a "win button" tech strategy.

Also, fleets are cool, and different races go for different weapon techs, so you need to keep reevaluating your designs, keep different ships for different goals etc.

Overall it's a good game. It's a little heavy on the exploration/combat part and more light on the diplomacy/intrigue part, but frankly I don't mind as much.
 

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